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OSS Provides Opportunity, Challenge for Developing World
NewsForge has an interesting article looking at open source in the developing world. From the article: " Open source software and development can push governments of developing nations ahead in the world, but only if they participate as producers of the technology themselves, United Nations University (UNU) researchers say. While they say developing regions such as China, East Asia, India, and South America are among the biggest markets for open source software, UNU officials worry that there may be too few open source developers in those regions."
United Nations University (UNU) researchers say. While they say developing regions such as China, East Asia, India, and South America are among the biggest markets for open source software, UNU officials worry that there may be too few open source developers in those regions.
Also from the article:
Still, Krishna stresses that limiting prospects to only open source solutions and development may deprive these nations of access to other resources, which might include proprietary solutions, companies, and their money. "A lot of people argue there are more opportunities from proprietary solutions, and they might not get it if they are so open source oriented," he says. "The proper course of action is not to be tied to one or get into any religious wars.
The way I see it, open source is an opportunity for everyone. This is just as true of small towns and rural places in the USA and Europe as it is for third world countries. Rather than sending off money to Redmond and Silicon Valley, these countries and cities and towns can hire locals to develop the software. If it is an open source product, they will already have a starting point. I think the biggest advantage of open source, which is constantly over looked, is that it basically combines the best of two worlds: commercial-off-the-shelf and custom development.
Have a problem that can almost be solved by an available commercial app? Tough, it will be close to impossible (unless you are IBM or the U.S. or Eurpean government) to get the developers to change it for you. Have a problem that can almost be solved by an existing oss package? Great bring in some experienced local contractors to modify it to your organization's needs.
Everybody wins: your organization gets something it may not have gotten before; money stays in the local economy; the community around that product benefits (if changes are contributed back); and so on. The only people who lose are the established software companies, because they now have stiffer competition that is more agile than they are.
I travel and I travel a lot: 40 countries so far and the one thing that frustrates me to no end are American swho think that bringing technology to the world is a bad thing. They suffer from a mentality that the grass is greener...
Not doing what we can to empower folks in impoverished countries only serves to keep them down. Maybe, just maybe they can (no closed sourced pun intended) excel and achieve great things if they just had the tools. Before the technology boom the concept of outsourcing anything to India was unheard of for example. It's not empowering EVERYONE but India is definitely becoming a powerhouse. I know small businesses who outsource to Ukraine and Azerbaijan now.
Closed source by it's very expensive nature only serves to keep people down.
A large middle class with significant 'spare time' is a particularly recent, western, first-world phenomenom. In third world countries, most people - except for the aristocracy - just don't have much spare time.
Forty hours per week? Until the US became industrialized in the late 1800s, most people worked 10-12 per day 6+ days per week.
"That is a mindset that should be discouraged from being advocated."
I don't get it. You ripped this line out of its context. Let me get it back in:
"Open source is not the poor man's Windows, [t]hat is a mindset that should be discouraged from being advocated."
Translated: "You don't use Open Source, just because it is cheaper than Windows. There are other reasons."
FOSS means that work, whether localisation or support, can be done in the local region at local prices. It therefore levels the playing field, helping to achieve the (supposed) objectives of the WTO. And, in reality, it doesn't reduce Microsoft's profits as much as you might think because, in many cases, the alternative is actually piracy.
On the other hand, it creates middle class jobs (jobs relying on literacy, professional skills etc.). The biggest problem of many Third World countries is the lack of a middle class. Between the very poor (exploited) and the very rick (exploiters) there is no buffer of people to create a civil society. In China the very concept of civil society is still alien while it has emerged rapidly in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea. India has a rapidly increasing middle class and is the world's biggest democracy.
So, I know this may seem over the top: but FOSS provides support to fair trade, emerging democracy and free markets. And it does it while expending very little energy, so it contributes little to climate change.
Pining for the fjords
First of all, let's stop the stereotyping. The "developing world" is huge and extremely diverse, containing countries as comparatively wealthy and advanced as South Africa as well as underdeveloped and poor countries like Mozambique. To suggest, as some have here, that "nobody in the developing world has free time", or "few people have access to electricity" or my personal favourite of "people in the developing world have more pressing needs, such as food and water", is of course ludicrous. To those making such arguments, please do us all a favour and educate yourselves.
Programming is essentially a product of enthusiasm, as many of those reading Slashdot will probably know. In this, it is similar to becoming a pilot. Every single programmer I know began programming purely out of interest, and a desire to do more with their computers and explore the boundaries of what was possible. Not all programmers go on to make it their careers though, just as not all of those who dream of flying as kids end up as pilots. However, when the demand is there, people become encouraged to turn their hobby or interest into a career, and do so. The thing to remember here is that programmers are not created, and you cannot shove out some govt program that will result in a couple hundred programmers emerging by the end of the year. Instead, it's about giving youths access to computers (say at school) and teaching them the healthy curiousity and ambition that results in them trying to do more than the usual.
Currently, the emergence of programmers in the developing world is hampered by a lack of widespread access to quick and cheap internet, and a lack of access to computers. Yet this is slowly changing, and it really can only get better as both internet access and computing become irrevocably cheaper every year. Indeed, if there are already enough skilled software programmers in India to throw half of Slashdot's contributors into a protectionist rage every so often, then you know things are looking up in the developing world.
This article, and others like it, is interesting but ultimately misguided. The choice here is not an absolutist one between open source and proprietary software, as both have their place, and nor is there any way to magically create programmers. Instead, the attention that is being focused on the supposed lack of programmers such instead be focused on pressuring the governments of the developing world to liberalise their markets, drop tariffs, and generally increases the level of freedom available to their people, so that those with the curiousity to try new things will be able to do so without hindrance.